Грег Иган - The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 1

“They can’t isolate a virus. Our immune systems seem to be attacking something, but we have no idea what, or why, and our bodies are breaking down. How can we stop something if we can’t figure out what it is?

“I will hold on as long as I can, my lifelove, but the plague is accelerating. Don’t come to the surface, use the Chronicle. Whatever this is, it has to be alien.”

She closed her eyes and listened to him describe the fall of the colony. If she closed her eyes and ignored the content of the words, if she forced herself not to hear the frailness in his voice, if she pushed away all the realities she could not accept—it was like he was still down there, a quick shuttle hop away, waiting for her to join him.

“The transmission systems have started to go. This alien world is harsh, and without our entire colony fighting to make it hospitable, everything is failing, all our efforts falling apart. Entropy will turn us all to dust. This will probably be my last letter, but perhaps when you arrive you will see me in the Chronicle.

“Keep fighting. Live for both of us. I love you.”

“You home, Mom?” Kenzou called out as he came in. “I’m going out with Hyun-sik tonight, but… are you crying? What happened?”

Saki rubbed away the tears and gestured down at the tablet. “Vids. The old letters.”

Kenzou hugged her. “I miss him, too, but you shouldn’t watch those. You need to hold yourself together until the expeditions are done.”

“I’m not going to pretend he doesn’t exist.”

She went to the replicator and ordered another scotch.

Kenzou picked up the dishes she’d left on the counter, clearing away her clutter probably without even realizing he was doing it. He was so like his father in some ways, and now he wanted to act as though nothing had happened.

The silence between them stretched long. He punched some commands into the replicator, but nothing happened.

“He was your father,” Saki said softly.

“And you think this doesn’t hurt?” Kenzou snapped. He smacked the side of the replicator and it beeped and let out a hiss of steam. His fingers danced across the keypad again, hitting each button far harder than necessary. The replicator produced a cup of green tea, and his brief moment of anger passed. “I’m trying to move on. Dad would have wanted that.”

The outburst made her want to hold him like she had when he was young. She’d buried herself in her work these last few months, and he had found his comfort elsewhere. He’d finished growing up sometime when she wasn’t looking.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Go, spend time with your boyfriend.”

He softened. “You shouldn’t drink alone, Mom.”

“And you shouldn’t secretly date my students,” she scolded gently. “It’s very awkward when the whole lab knows who my son is dating before I do!”

He sipped his tea. “There aren’t that many people on station. Word has a way of getting around.”

After a short pause he added, “You could ask Dr. Li to have a drink with you, if you insist on drinking.”

“I don’t think she would…” Saki shook her head.

“And that’s why your entire lab knows these things before you do.” He finished his tea, then washed the cup and put it away. “You don’t notice what is right in front of you.”

“I’m not ready to move on.” She looked down at the menu on her tablet, the list of recently viewed vids a line of tiny icons of M.J.’s face. He was supposed to be here, waiting for her. They were supposed to have such a wonderful life.

“I know.” He hugged her. “But I think you can get there.”

Layers of information diminish as they recede from the original source. In archaeology, you remove the artifacts from their context, change a physical record into descriptions and photographs. You choose what gets recorded, often unaware of what you do not think to keep. Your impressions—logged in books or electronically on tablets or in whatever medium is currently in fashion—are themselves a physical record that future researchers might find, when you are dead and gone.

Saki was with Li in the Chronicle, four weeks after the collapse.

The third floor of the hospital was empty. Not just devoid of people—this was a part of the Chronicle that came after everyone had died, so that wasn’t surprising. The place was half cleaned out. Foam mattresses on metal frames, but someone or something had taken the sheets. Nothing in the planters, not even dry dead plants. This wasn’t long after the collapse, and the pieces simply did not fit.

“Why would anyone bother taking things from the hospital while everyone was dying?” Li messaged. “And why are there no bodies? There was no one left at the end to take care of the remains.”

The crops had failed, the parrot had died, the hospital was empty. Saki knew there had to be a connection, but what was it? She scanned the area for clues. In a patch of bright sunlight near one of the windows, she saw the faint outline of a distortion, another visitor to the Chronicle. The window was at the edge of the containment area, but probably within reach.

“Someone else was here,” Saki typed, “by that window.”

“I think you’re right. Closer look?” Li fished out the rope from her pack. “I’m not a graduate student, so you’re not responsible for my well-being.”

Saki caught herself before explaining that as lead researcher she was still responsible for the welfare of everyone on the team. Li was partly teasing, but it held some truth, too. If Li was willing to risk it, they could investigate.

“Can I be the one to go?” Saki asked.

“You think it might be M.J.” Li did not phrase it as a question.

“Yes.”

Li fastened the rope securely around her waist and handed Saki the other end. They checked each other’s knots, then checked them again. If they came untied, it would be difficult or maybe impossible to get back to their marks. They spun themselves around and pressed their palms and feet together. “Gently. We can try again if you don’t get far enough.”

Li’s hands were smaller than her own, and warm.

“Ready?”

Saki felt the tiny movements of Li’s fingers as she typed the word. She nodded. “Three, two, one.”

They pushed off of each other, propelling Saki toward the window and Li in the opposite direction, leaving a wide white scar across the Chronicle between them. Saki managed to contort her body around so that she could see where she was going as she drifted toward the window. The human form that stood there was not facing the hospital, and she couldn’t see their face. She reached the end of the rope a meter short of the window.

“Is it M.J.?” Li messaged from across the room.

“I don’t know,” Saki replied.

The white figure by the window was about the right height to be M.J., about the right shape. But the colony was huge, and even narrowed down to just the archronologists, it could have been any number of people. Saki twisted around to gain a few more centimeters, but she couldn’t see well enough to know one way or the other. If she untied the rope and used the micro-jets on her suit—but no, that would leave Li stranded.

“Whoever it is, they were looking out the window.” Saki tore her gaze away from the figure that might or might not be her lifelove. She’d seen the New Mars campus many times, even this part of campus, because the hospital was across the quad from the archronology building. M.J. had sometimes recorded his vid letters there, on the yellow-tinged grass that grew beneath the terrafruit trees.

Outside the window, there were no trees. There was no grass. Not even dry brown grass and dead leafless trees. It was bare ground. Nothing but a layer of red New Martian dust.